Shein sets Hong Kong debut at 73% below its 2022 peak valuation

Shein filed Monday to list on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange on 1 September, offering nearly 280 million shares at between HK$47.60 and HK$49.50, which implies a valuation of close to $27 billion at the top of the range.

That number is approximately 73% below the $100 billion private market peak the company reached in 2022. The gap reflects a $99 million net loss in the first quarter of this year, against a $395 million profit in the same period a year earlier, driven by slowing sales growth and the removal of the US de minimis exemption on small imported packages.

Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and JP Morgan are backing the offering. Beijing granted approval for the Hong Kong listing last month, after regulatory obstacles closed off New York and London as venues.

Shein was founded in China and relocated its headquarters to Singapore between 2021 and 2022. The company sells to approximately 160 countries and counted 156 million average monthly users in Europe by end of last year.

The IPO is the first significant test of Hong Kong's appeal as a listing venue for consumer-facing Chinese-origin companies navigating US-China trade tension and sustained scrutiny of their supply chains.

About the analyst

Eleanor Ashworth

Senior Markets Analyst

Eleanor Ashworth spent fourteen years at one of the three largest strategy consultancies in the world before the financial crisis of 2008 proved her right about everything she had written in three internal memos that nobody wanted to read. She was not one of the people who was wrong.